I acquired my small amount of BA as a spinoff from Rockwell years ago. You might want to skim this discussion which goes into why Janet Yellen, the new Fed chairman had most of her money in a Vanguard Index fund. She's brilliant and her husband has a Nobel prize in Economics !!! There are also some tax advantages to index funds and I'm in a fairly high bracket.
Yellen's appointment provided a rare and extremely beneficial look at how the world's smartest people invest. Some discussion of Boeing is included too.